This German non-profit has given away half a million dollars in free salaries

Leave it to the uber-efficient Germans to create one of the most
innovative economic experiments around right now.

On Tuesday August 23, the crowdfunding project Mein
Grundeinkommen (translation: "My basic income")
announced it will give seven people $13,600 (or €12,000) over the
course of one year, paid in monthly increments. That brings the
total number of people who have gotten free money from the
project to more than 50.

Under the lottery's terms, people will receive the money no
matter what — no matter whether they're unemployed or
ultra-wealthy, or if they plan to invest in repairs or splurge on
vacations.

MeinGrundeinkommen began in 2014 to promote
the radical economic policy known as universal basic income
(UBI), which calls for a regular allowance to be dolled out to
everyone in a given region or society, enabling them to cover
basic expenses like food and clothing regardless of their other
income.

Over time, basic income advocates claim, the policy could improve
social welfare by eliminating poverty. A great
deal of research over the last several years has suggested
that may be the case.

Mein Grundeinkommen was started by German entrepreneur
Michael Bohmeyer, who had quit his job as a web developer
and was living on stocks from his previous company. Already
endowed with an understanding of basic income, he decided to find
a way to give regular, crowd-funded incomes to the
general public.

Today, the project awards one-year salaries to over a dozen
people per year. Ordinary folks can log onto Mein
Grundeinkommen's website to make a contribution to
the salaries, enter the lottery to win one, or both. True to its
mission of promoting the "universal" part of UBI, one of the
lottery's biggest upsides has been that anyone can win.

One of the first recipients, in fact, was an 8-year-old boy named
Robin who, upon learning he'd won, asked "Do I get a book every
month?" He's since said the best thing
about the project was the excitement of getting free money
and the happy feelings it gave him.

Bohmeyer's idea has also spawned other basic income lotteries
around the world.

The Dutch organization MIES (translation: Society for
Innovations in Economics and Community)
awarded a monthly income of $1,100 to a Dutch man named Frans
Kerver in July 2015. He recently stopped receiving his
monthly checks, but has said the added free time to spend with
his family was tremendous.

And in June 2016, the American nonprofit My Basic Income awarded its first
basic income salary of $15,000 to
a man named Edwin from Sarasota, Florida. An Indiegogo
campaign helped fund the project, and now the organization
receives donations on
the crowdfunding site Patreon.

Over time, organizers of these lotteries hope their
experiments can eventually turn into formal public policy.

Ideally, the public will see the success stories of people
who couldn't pay their medical bills or, in Robin's case, read as
many books as they'd like, and realize something like UBI has
what it takes to beat out traditional welfare in the goal of
erasing poverty.